Are Ukrainians Russians?
Seems like a simple question, but in reality it is immensely complex. I will try to outline a few of the issues, assumptions and implications this question involves.
Well, for starters, we might want to ask “what is a Ukrainian?” After all, no such nation or country can be found in history books. But we should not stop here, and we also need to ask “what is a Russian?”. Yes, there was a Russian nation and a Russian country recorded in history books, but does that really help us?
French history books used to begin with the sentence “our ancestors the Gauls” which even kids on the French colonies had to learn. Some ridiculed the fact that sub-Saharan Africans or the children of Guadeloupe had to learn that and that was self-evidently ridiculous.
But what about metropolis French, those who lived in France proper?
Were their ancestors really Gauls and, if so, how much continuity, if any, is there between Vercingetorix and Macron or the people from ancient Gallic tribes to the modern French?
What we often overlook is that nationality is a very modern concept born out of the post-1789 ideology of nationalism. In the more distant past, people built their identity around 1) their place of birth/residence 2) their religion and 3) their ruler. Keeping all that in mind, let’s begin by asking the question “what is a Russian?”. But before we go there, I need to mention another pesky issue: the English word “Russian” can mean one of two things: a member of the Russian ethnic/cultural group, in which case the Russian term is русский (roosskii) or a citizen of the Russian Federation, in which case the Russian term would be россиянин (rossiianin).
[Sidebar: before 1917 you could be a “Russian Chechen” or “Russian German” because the distinction between rossiianin and roosskii did not exist then or, should we say, it was less common and used differently. Russia being the cultural, political and spiritial heir to the East Roman Empire, it had multi-ethnicity built into her from the moment Russia appeared.]
For the time being, let’s ignore the second meaning and focus on the ethnic/cultural русский (roosskii). What is a русский (roosskii)?
To try to find a good definition, let’s begin by spelling out what a Russian is not.
- This is not somebody who speaks Russian. There are plenty of folks out there who speak Russian and who are not Russian.
- This is not somebody born in Russia, because there are plenty of non-Russians born in Russia.
How about somebody born from Russian parents?
Here we run into a logical problem: if we define as Russian somebody born of Russian parents without defining what Russian means in the first place, this is a completely circular definition.
Also, is Shoigu Russian? His father is an ethnic Tuvan. So 50% Russian max?
How about Czar Nicholas II? His ancestry was mostly German and Danish.
How about Lenin? He had only 1/4 “Russian” blood (whatever that means)
Here we need to keep three crucial elements in mind:
- Russia was always multi ethnic, even in the 10th century!
- Russia has no natural borders
- Russia was invaded by innumerable ethnic and religions groups and many of these groups acculturated into the Russian society adding their heritage to the common Russian one
Thus the “ethnic definition” does not work at all.
For countries like Japan or native people like the Mapuche, ethnic categories might make sense, but for a country with a history and geography like Russia it is utterly meaningless (hence the reason why patriotism is a very positive force in Russia and nationalism a very toxic one).
But it only gets even more complicated.
Just like, say, France or Italy, Russia went through very different moments in history and the Russia or, say, the 15th century and the Russia of the 19th century had very little in common.
Now this is highly subjective, but I would submit that at the very least, we can roughly break up the historical Russia into the following periods:
- Russia before Peter I
- Russia between Peter I and 1917
- Soviet Russia between 1917 and 1991
- US colonized Russia between 1991 and 2000
- Putin’s Russia 2000-2021
- Russia after 2022
And even this is a much simplified categorization, each period should also be further subdivided, but that would take too much space here.
Next I would also argue that how Russians defined themselves over these periods also changed, and this why pre-1917 Dostoevsky thought that one cannot be Russian unless one is Orthodox first (which might have made sense before 1917, but sure makes no sense at all in 2022). My point here is not to discuss the best possible definition of “who/what is a Russian” but to show that this apparently simple question is also very complex and, at best, a moving target!
Now in the case of the Ukraine, it gets even more complex than that.
When I wrote above that there was no “Ukrainian nation” or “Ukrainian state” in history I did not mean to say that BECAUSE there were no such phenomena in history there is no such thing as a Ukrainian today.
To be clear, I do NOT believe that in order to consider yourself as belonging to an ethnic or cultural group you MUST have a historical basis for your claim. Nations can be created, in fact, I would argue that all of them are created at some point in time. Ethnogenesis is something we can observe on all continents, nations and ethnic groups: this is the emergence of a NEW and DISTINCT identity, usually followed by the creation of “founding myths” which might or might not have any real basis in history.
In the case of the Ukraine (I mean this term geographically here, the southwestern frontier/border lands of Russia), it is simply undeniable that these lands lived under Polish/Latin yoke for many centuries and that this occupation had two direct results:
- The people of the Ukraine had experiences which the rest of the Russian nation did not (such as being under Latin occupation or having Orthodox communities submitted to the Greek and not the Russian Orthodox Church).
- The people of the Ukraine did not experience some of the most crucial events in Russian history (such as the Old Rite vs New Rite crisis which deeply shattered Russian society in the 17th century and after).
Such differences in experience left deep marks on the identity of the people it affected. It would be foolish to deny this and it would be dangerous to deliberately ignore it!
So, to sum up what I have tried to show so far we could say that:
- History is not a useful tool to measure some supposed “legitimacy” of any one group’s claim of identity.
- Ethnic/cultural identities can arise both spontaneously and even artificially.
In the case of the Ukraine, it is a mix of both. Primarily, the “Ukraine” is a creation of the Latin Papacy (see here for a discussion). But, like it or not, the Latins did eventually trigger a Ukrainian ethnogenesis, albeit with varying degrees of success (roughly the further West, the longer the Polish yoke, the stronger that Ukrainian identity).
But even if none of that had happened, it would make no difference.
Even if we assume that there was absolutely NOTHING on our planet which could be called “Ukraine” or “Ukrainian”, and even if the people of the post-1991 Ukraine had ZERO historical basis for their claims, it is still a fundamental human right to choose your identity (or, more accurately, identities, plural).
If tomorrow the people of Japan decide that from now on their identity will not be Japanese but, say, Martian, we could laugh all we want, but we could not deny them that right or force them to give up their newly adopted “Martian” identity.
Furthermore, is it not silly to tell a person who absolutely hates Russia and all things Russian and who sincerely believes that he is from a totally different ethnic and cultural group, that this person has no right to his opinion that this person must accept that he is Russian?
That would create a “Russian russophobe”.
Actually, there are PLENTY of Russians russophobes out there. Even if by any imaginable definition you are Russian (or any other nationality), you still have the free will to reject that heritage and choose another one (even a fictional one).
There is even a special term for these folks: вырусь (vyroos‘). In my experience, most (but not all!) folks who voluntarily emigrated from Russia fall into this category.
This is why my first thesis here is this: those Ukrainians who chose to identify as Ukrainians and who reject any Russian heritage (whatever we may mean by that) have the moral right to do so and nobody has the moral right to deny them this choice. And while historical arguments can be used to debunk the founding myths of the Ukronazi ideology, they still cannot be used to deny anybody what is a deeply personal choice.
[Sidebar: it is my personal belief that identities can be cumulative and that they don’t have to exclude each other. While I personally consider myself culturally a “pre-1917 Russian”, I am 50% Dutch by DNA, I was born in German speaking Switzerland and lived most of my life in French speaking Geneva, and I also feel even more cultural identities inside me, including an Argentinian one. I speak 5 languages well (albeit with many typos when I write, as you all know!) and another 2 reasonably. I currently live in the USA (click here for an explanation why) And just to add yet another element, I am a member of a Greek Orthodox Church, not a Russian one. I also think of myself as a Jazz guitarist and freediver. So even my hobbies form part of my identity. Why should I have to limit myself to only one, “pure”, identity when I am so clearly a mongrel? In fact, I embrace and enjoy all this diversity of influences which all have contributed to shape the person I am today. And if I claim that right to cumulative identities, how could I deny it to anybody else?]
And then there is this undeniable fact: while about 80% of россиянин (rossiianin) are русский (roosskii), 20% are not. In fact there are 193 ethnic groups in Russia and 35 languages which are considered official languages in various regions of Russia, along with Russian, plus are over 100 minority languages. And while Chechens are not русский (roosskii) they are most definitely россиянин (rossiianin), that is to say that while Chechens are a distinct ethnic group, they are also part of what I call the “Russian civilizational realm”. One could reasonably argue that the Chechens of 2022 are the most patriotic of all Russians!
This makes a lot more sense to me than to dig into past clades, tribes or local native groups and seek some “biological identity”.
This is, by the way, one of the most striking and profound differences between the Russian and Ukronazi cultural models: Russians want and enjoy the immense diversity of their nations. Ukronazi want a racially pure, russenrein, Ukraine (hence their constant talk about “subhumans”, “cockroaches” and “biotrash”).
Let’s leave the idiotic concept of “pure race” to the Nazis, Zionists and their likes.
The first thing which I would immediately point out is that historically the lands which we now call the Ukraine were very much exposed to, or even part of, the Russian civilizational realm. But that is absolutely NOT true of the current, Ukronazi/Banderista cultural identity which, in fact, was created as an anti-Orthodoxy and which nowadays sees itself as an anti-Russia. I personally know that identity very, very well: not only have I met plenty of Ukronazis in my life, I also monitored the Ukronazi propaganda on VOA and RFE/RL for years and I know that Ukronazi nationalism has no positive content whatsoever, it is only a pure and total negation of everything Russian with a few truly ridiculous (and comical) claims about some “Ukrainian antiquity”.
In other words, even if you live in Odessa or Kharkov and you are (let’s simply assume that) from 100% pure ethnic Russian stock (no such thing, but bear with me), you STILL get to reject that identity and adopt any identity you want, including the Ukronazi/Banderistsa one.
At this point, I want to list all the criteria which are plainly not helpful to discuss identities:
- Genetic makeup
- Place of birth
- Mother-tongue (or languages)
- Religion
- History in general and historical borders (which constantly shifted) specifically
- Whether we personally approve of an ideology or cultural claim or not
- Political ideologies
- Identities embraced in the past
- The difference between a language and a dialect
- Similarities and differences with other identities
And yet, every time I hear people discuss whether the Russians are liberators or occupiers of the Ukraine, I see these criteria used, and by both sides!
This makes absolutely no sense to me.
In fact, I strongly believe that the choice of being Ukrainian, Russian or both (yes, that is a choice!) depends on each individual person. Period.
But here I want to add something crucial: having to make such a personal choice is not specific or unique to the Ukrainians, all Russians also face the same question too!
I submit that, objectively, the “Russian” 5th column and the Atlantic Integrationists are, de facto, not Russians. Why do I say that? Because 1) they serve foreign masters and 2) they seek to harm Russia. And I don’t care how their actions are packaged (heck, Navalnyi tried really hard to impersonate a nationalist!)
Thus, to “be Russian” means, in my opinion, that you have made a deliberate choice by identifying with, and becoming part of, the Russian civilizational realm.
Put simply: you cannot be Russian and hate Russians.
How many people in what is left of the Ukraine today consider themselves Russian?
I don’t know, and I don’t think anybody else knows either.
But I think that it is fair to say that most people in Russia were shocked by the number of Ukrainians who chose to not only adopt a Ukrainian identity, but even fight and die for it! Many did, sincerely, think of Ukrainians as “brothers”.
Today this “brotherhood” looks increasingly like the “brotherhood” of Cain…
Even more amazingly, most of these Ukronazis don’t even speak Ukrainian properly and mostly speak to each other in Russian. Some even consider themselves as Orthodox Christians. Yup, these Russian speakers, many from the central and eastern Ukraine still sing “Батько наш — Бандера, Україна — мати, ми за Україну будем воювати!” (Our Father is Bandera, our mother the Ukraine, we are ready to wage war for the Ukraine).
I would note with some glee that if Bandera is their father, then the Ukraine was born no earlier than the mid-1920s (since Bandera was born in 1909!). And I won’t even go into the Ukie hallucinations about being “pure Aryans” (as opposed to the Moskals whom they see as Finno-Ugric-Mongols), which is an ideology developed even later :-)
So, 2537 words later, did we even begin to answer the question of whether the Ukrainians are Russians?
No, not really. And here is why:
Taken by themselves, the terms “Ukrainian” and “Russian” are highly ambiguous.
We know that in the past, many of those whom we call “Ukrainians” today had ancestors who lived and were part of the Russian civilizational realm. But that does not AT ALL mean that modern Ukrainians want (or even could!) join the Russian civilizational realm, especially since what this realm was, is and will become is also highly complex and even controversial.
Furthermore, I think that we need to pay special attention to what is happening in Russia today: the SMO has had a HUGE impact on the Russian society and that society is quickly and profoundly changing.
That by itself begs the question of what kind of civilizational realm Russia is offering to the peoples of the Ukraine today?
One thing is certain, the Russia of, say 2023-2025 will be profoundly different from the Russia of 2000-2022. First, the Russian ultimatum to the West of 2021 then the 2022 SMO have truly revolutionized (in a literal sense) Russia: 5th columnists and assorted liberals have fled by the thousands (mostly to Poland, Israel and the three Baltic statelets), the Atlantic Integrationists have either given up or are keeping a very low profile. Foreign agents (folks paid by foreign interest) must now register, are listed as such, and can be fined or even imprisoned for breaking Russian laws (finally!).
Russia has also completely and categorically rejected the entire Woke ideology promoted by the Hegemony worldwide.
Most importantly, the reality of a AngloZionist Empire which wants to subjugate, colonize, enslave and break-up Russia has now become pretty hard to ignore. In fact, this war (against the collective West, not just a few Ukronazis!) is as much an existential war for Russia as WWII, so those Russians who complain about the lack of Spanish jamon serrano in Russia stores need to wake up and compare their current “hardships” with what their parents and grandparents suffered during WWII (besides, you can still find Spanish jamon serrano in Russia, just at a higher price than before; there are also superb local substitutes!).
Here I want to express my deepest thanks to the US Neocons, EU lemmings, NATO Nazis, the Latin Papists and all the other Russia-haters who have generated one of the biggest hate-waves in human history and who have now FORCED all Russians into a basic, yet vital, choice: resist or perish.
Unlike the folks in the West (until recently) and unlike the folks in the Ukraine (again, until recently), many Russian people have gradually switched their mode thinking from “peacetime” to “wartime”. In fact, I would even argue that the so-called “Russian defeats” in Bucha, Kharkov or Kherson have only poured more fuel onto the raging fire of Russian anger: in February of this year very few Russians would have supported to switch off the lights in the entire Ukraine. But by late summer, they were DEMANDING it!
So, the next time you hear about “Russian defeats” consider the following:
- the massive wake-up effect these “defeats” have had on a (rather spoiled) Russian society
- the comparatively minuscule price paid by Russia for these tactical retreats (economy of force maneuvers really) and
- the huge costs of these “victories” for the NATO side
and decide for yourself if Putin is weak and indecisive or very smart and cunning :-)
Nobody really knows what Russia will look like in 2023-2024-2025 etc. So nobody really knows what kind of “Russian civilizational realm” the SMO is “offering” to the people of the Ukraine. It is therefore impossible to ascertain whether Ukrainians (which Ukrainians anyway, they are still a diverse group!) will ever become Russians again or not. Some probably will. Many probably won’t.
One thing for me is axiomatic: Russia should not occupy even a single square meter of “Ukrainian” land if that land is mostly populated by Ukronazis. In fact, I see no need to “go to the Polish border” or any other such grand plans. Yes, NATO might well not give Russia any choice (just as NATO forced the SMO upon Russia!), but then I hope for a swift “in and out”. Russia should only free those who want to be freed. Period. The rest she can either ignore (if they leave Russia alone), or kill (if they threaten Russia).
Does Russia want/need millions of Ukronazis inside her borders? Nope!
Can Russia afford to pay for the destruction of country 404? Nope!
Do Russian authorities really want to be in charge of not only pensions and social programs, but also law and order in a land populated by (armed!) people who hate Russia with a passion? Nope!
But I do agree, fully, that Banderastan needs to be fully demilitarized and denazified.
The former can be achieved without having to put forces on every square meter of the Ukraine while the latter will happen as a natural consequence of the former: if all you got is police and SWAT forces, what is the point of playing Nazi or talking about “liberating Crimea next year”? And if some residual Ukronazis want to read Mein Kampf, and can stay awake while reading it, then let them. Who cares?
And then there are population movements. MILLIONS have left for the EU and MILLIONS have left for Russia. MILLIONS have also “left” when Crimea and the LDNR joined Russia. And now that the lights are out, MILLIONS more are leaving (and only 20% plan to return according to Ukrainian estimates). Add to this the 100’000 KIA of Ursula von der Lugen, multiply it by a safe factor 2 and we probably already have 200’000 KIA and, therefore, about 300’000-400’000 wounded in action. True, “Ze” & Co. can continue to mobilize wave after wave after wave of civilians, and NATO can even get most of them through some sort of basic training (including advanced training for some), but that is not a sustainable strategy: Russia has many more artillery shells than bodies the Ukrainians, Poles, Brits and all the other crazies can throw into the Russian meat grinder.
[Sidebar: you might wonder what the current US Neocon plan is. Simple: to get as many Ukrainians killed as possible and then accuse Russia of genocide and to ruin the EU economies to remove a competitor. BTW – Plan A was to attack the LDNR, trigger an overthrow of Putin, place a puppet in power and dismember Russia. That plan failed. So what we see today is the USA’s Plan B, executed by NATO and a few megalomaniacal idiots with imperial phantom pains (UK+PL not to mention them).]
One more point: this all also applies to Belarus, Kazakhstan and all the other Russian limitrophes. So far, not a single one of them has shown the capability of being a viable, stable state. ALL of them have chosen what some call “multi-vectorness”, that is: you beg Russia for protection and the USA for money.
Does Russia needs such “friends” or “allies”?
Are Iran, China or even Algeria not infinitely better friends and allies by any measure?
I say that once all these limitrophes get their act together and make a basic choice because if there is one thing which the Euromaidan has proven beyond reasonable doubt is that the West will never allow any country to be a good neighbor or partner to both the West and Russia.
Now, especially following the wave of total hatred against all things Russian in the West, this obligation to choose one side or another has become a fact of life for at least as long as the (already dead) AngloZionist Empire maintains its (still very real) momentum and its ability to suborn the comprador elites ruling over countries with no sovereignty or agency (the entire EU for starters). This is why both Russia and China seek a multi-polar world in which all countries are truly sovereign and the relations between these countries determined by the rule of international law.
Conclusion:
This is not about the Ukraine and Russia. This is about a full reorganization of our entire planet, including the international trade and finance, political alliances and cultural/spiritual values.
The following two images sum it all up nicely I think.
Right now, both Russia and the Ukraine are moving targets undergoing tremendous changes. And I am not saying that Russians and Ukrainians cannot be brothers or even be one nation again. All I am saying is that making such an assumptions would be extremely dangerous and costly.
Somewhere, further down the road, there could be a Ukraine and a Russia living in a not too comfy relationship like, say, Pakistan and India today, but with a fully demilitarized Ukraine (nevermind one threatening Russia with nukes, which both Pakistan and India have, so that parallel only goes so far). I am pretty sure that the Poles will bite off a chunk of the rump-Banderastan, and maybe the Hungarians too. Finally, I consider it very likely that by one way or another, Russia will liberate the Ukrainian coast and lift the current blockade of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR) where about half a million Russian citizens live. So you can pretty much visualize what the Ukraine will look like when the Russians decide to stop.
But, when all is said and done, it will be for the people of the Ukraine to decide which civilizational realm they want to embrace. Russia should not liberate those who embrace their slavery.
Andrei
Easiest way to solve this question is, “nations” don’t exist in the long term.
Only empires exists.
This is applicable to literally any supposed group of people.
Let’s say Poles, they think they get feee from the Russians and now they are able to create their nation state, but not.
They are gradually submissive to the American empire and culture. Let it go 100 years and they will not speak polish any more.
Nations are a pure invention. Even the real historical ones (Spanish, French, England, Russian, Chinese) are only based in the power of the state.
The Roman Empire impose the roman culture and language
The Persian empire did the same
About Ukrainians in particular I will give my opinion, my wife is Belarussian, i have sit with Ukrainians, Russians and Belarussian in a table. Pass lot of time with them.
Ukrainians are mostly purely Russians. Maybe some of them are Hungarians, but generally speaking all of them are Russians. The only polish ones are some rich elites.
For the rest, they behave like Russian, they speak Russian, they are orthodox.
To have some particular patterns don’t make you a nation.
I can say that a person from Andalusia in Spain is far more different than a person From galizia (Spain) than a Ukrainian from a Russian.
“Easiest way to solve this question is, “nations” don’t exist in the long term. Only empires exists”.
And what about “Civilization States”?
https://www.noemamag.com/the-attack-of-the-civilization-state/
“Nations are a pure invention. Even the real historical ones (Spanish, French, England, Russian, Chinese) are only based in the power of the state”.
Countries like China, India, Iran are Civilization States. Quote from the article linked above:
“Three or four years ago, as I drove around Beijing visiting officials and intellectuals, I kept hearing the same message. In my experience, the only moment when a Chinese intellectual or official should be taken literally is when he or she is walking a guest to the car. With no one around and no time to add any commentary, a single sentence can speak volumes. And the sentence I was hearing was this: “Always remember that China is a civilization rather than a nation-state.”
The same culture exists across the border of indian Punjab and pakistani Punjab. In India like many places and especially in India with its hindu caste system and untouchability, vegetarainism etc the difference within ethnic groups based on religion can be significant. It’s so great that in most parts of India the Typical hindu is not even aware what kind of dishes a typical muslim eats at home.
Punjabis across the border of India and Pakistan have much more common with each other than say a Tamil from South India. In fact even religious rituals, festivals of same castes among hindus of Punjab and Tamilnadu would differ significantly despite belonging to same religion and caste.
Then there is the problem of idol worshipping communities being called Hindu ( which was a geographic identifyer used by muslim invaders from across the Afghan hindukush mountains. ) in 1920s the Sanatan Dharma religionists who were loosely refered to as Hindus but considered nearly 33% of non Muslim and Christians as outside the caste/religion decided to incorporate them within the identity of their religion which was essentially based on caste. If you did not belong to the castes you were outcaste ie out of religion. Thus also untouchable.
A geographic area of South Asia which has more diversity than Europe which when British left had hundreds of kingdoms, principalities big and small given an choice to be with India or Pakistan or go independent in some cases .
While Pakistan choice was largely voluntary significant parts of current India were forcefully incorporated.
So civilisational India is even more a problem because there are layers of nationalism, ethnic identity, religious identity in India being forcefully subdued.
All muslims in the Indian sub-continent are converts one way or the other. forceful or economic. A few hundred years ago this census of yours would have yielded 100% Hindu. but that’s not what you want to hear and have already diffentiated the North Indian punjabi’s with the Tamil’s in the South as having nothing in common…
Punjabis are one and if only Jinnah did not fall for the divide and conquer tactics of the British that neighborhood would be as properous as China.
There’s only one India that’s called Bharat as the it name goes by. It extends from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Bay of Bengal to Arabian sea.
I am using Empire in the way that some authors use, as a synonym of Civilization State.
A State that is enough powerful and self sufficient from a cultural and economic way to be consider a Empire.
In the current world there are few examples of this. I think we have the Anglosaxon empire, the Russian Mir, the Chinese, the Indians and (in the limit) Iran.
The Anglosaxon empire is basically the 5 eyes, that form the core. Western and Eastern European nations are just their vassals, becoming more Americanised year after year.
The Russians are obviously Russia plus Belarus and parts of other countries.
There are some other groups that have enough manpower and extension to be a civilisation empire but are too divided
One is the Hispanoamerican world, with a tremendously large manpower and resources, but with the US constantly interfering there
Other is the Arabic world, although I am not expert and I am not sure if they are really so similar between each other
Same with Southern Africa, tremendous man power and resources but maybe they are divided
Example of who cannot exist as a country in the long term, Croatia, Poland, Netherlands and even countries like France, Germany or Spain.
They would be absorbed culturally by the Anglosaxon world, or in the case of Spain could be theoretically absorbed in the future by a United South America (what would be much more favourable for them than to continue Their Anglosaxonization)
But it will never exist independently in the long term
The Roman Empire impose the roman culture and language
I am curious, what language are you referring to?
I know than in the Eastern Roman Empire at the end the Greek became official, but I referred to the Western Roman Empire.
If you read the history of Rome carefully you will see the similarities with the current Anglosaxon empire.
There were a core Province, Italy, where all people were roman citizens with all the rights.
But in the controlled regions like Hispania or the Galia only a few chosen ones had the roman citizens while majority of the people had not this right.
This didn’t stop the Romans to impose Latin to the Iberians and Celts, impose their “romanitas” or roman way of life.
Not very different of how the Anglosaxon impose the “American way of life” their socio economical structures and their language
I’m from a country that is next to Russia. I can’t tell the difference between Russians and Ukrainians, usually. But I will say Putin looks Russian and ‘elensky looks alien. I have nothing against Ukrainians, but their country needs to be taken apart.
Okay, but Putin has a very Slavic face (with somewhat Asian eyes) whereas Ze is a Jew. So it is not surprising that they look so different.
Curious about these Asian eyes of Putins’ Saker, I have seen others make this claim.
I dont see them that way at all, because to me, Asian – or rather Oriental – eyes have the epicanthal fold, which covers the inner corner of the eye. Putin has what we used to call “deep set” eyes, as in his bone structure around them allows the eye socket to be more behind the ridge than most have. But I have never thought of that as Asian for some reason. Plenty of AngloSaxons have them too.
The question is how far back in history do we want to travel to say I’m of one culture or another. If we stop at Noah it’s not sufficient , if we go to Adam & Eve many peoples complain for one reason or another. The world has been trampled upon by most everyone throughout history and a blood line would be hard to trace. Mainly if great grandparents played around.
Well you can go to Adam and Eve for an ethnic take on one story on a planet full of people, hundreds of thousands perhaps millions who never heard of a bible, Moses, and biblical claims to wee bits of desert lands given to them, according to them, by a God who made the rest of us non ethnic squatters, chattel. Big world out there far bigger than the one given by navel gazers bent on destroying other cultures that inhabited said piece of desert sand for far longer than any occupier.
The historical planet is far more complex than some guy and his family sailing around on a home made boat looking for a port in a storm.
Cheers M
What I am trying to get to is a history of mankind on the earth. We had to have a starting point, Where is that point ? I really don’t care if a person believes the history of the Bible or not. What I’m interested in is the starting point. Genetics has shown the Japanese came south from central east Russia. However, there is a mix with other blood lines there also. The Eskimo also migrated from eastern Russia and mangled with North America indigenous peoples. The question remains “where is the starting point for humanity” ?
We tend to forget I think i think, how genetic traits travel. Blood group B is about 45% of the population in China and you can map it across the world travelling East to West, slowly declining, until you get to the British Isles where – if you can eliminated the immigrants – you find it’s 5%. It used to be called the Asian allele.
How did this happen?
Honestly, we just dont know.
Let me suggest Genghis Khan was a warrior and ruler of genius who, starting from obscure and insignificant beginnings, brought all the nomadic tribes of Mongolia under the rule of himself and his family in a rigidly disciplined military state. He then turned his attention toward the settled peoples beyond the borders of his nomadic realm and began the series of campaigns of plunder and conquest that eventually carried the Mongol armies as far as the Adriatic Sea and even Poland in one direction and the Pacific coast of China in the other, leading to the establishment of the great Mongol Empire.
this comment has been flagged as of little/no value (possibly troll) by the sakerThe Saker
” Ze is a Jew ” ,What kind of a Jew ? a make belief jew like the Kha Zarine’s that came from Russia
between the Caspean sea to Black sea and to Kevi Ukraine or the jews from Palestina .
On another subject which is important if it is true,Three ( 3 ) russian millitary air base where hit yesterday
again if this info. is correct , why did’nt the Russia defense system take them down ???
Engels air base in Saratov and Ryazan and Kursk the first two are far in russia south-Central Russia
I received this information from a very good source If this is true WAR WAR 3 has just started.
TOM 3
You have no idea of what you are talking about.
So don’t.
As long as there are borders there will be border conflicts. No, I am not advocating for a One World Government. I am evangelizing for reality.
The California Indians pre-contact were generally a peaceful lot. With very limited exceptions, tribes did not wage warfare at scale against other tribes. When there were conflicts they were over — you guessed it — members of a tribe being inside another tribe’s borders. A raiding party here, an ambush there and order was restored.
Large scale warfare breeds large scale resentment and feeds the self-identification of people who feel they have been aggrieved as a “nation”. History is replete with examples of grudges that do not die an easy death. Can we talk about Alsace and Lorraine?
Any solution beneficial to Russia in the long term must include absolute assurance that no surviving Ukrainian state will be used to threaten its neighbor to the East. Not next month, nor next year, nor decade nor century. If that means wresting Ukraine from the West and cutting it off, well, “We did it before and we can do it again!”
Any solution beneficial to Russia in the long term must include absolute assurance that no surviving Ukrainian state will be used to threaten its neighbor to the East. Not next month, nor next year, nor decade nor century. If that means wresting Ukraine from the West and cutting it off, well, “We did it before and we can do it again!”
I very much agree. And I think that this will happen.
I’ll make a point I’ve made before.
On the issue of assurances (absolute or not) of this, that, and the other.
The Straussian neocons and their disciples and allies covet Russia’s vast resources, and want to control them, either directly or through compradore elites.
“They” (i.e., including their financial backers/masters/allies/whatever) remain very wealthy and powerful.
They. Will. Never. Stop.
Never. So this will continue. Overtly, clandestinely, covertly, or all three ways at the same time.
It will continue to play out over multiple generations, and multiple centuries. Even if we discover/make contact with intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, even if a flying saucer lands in the White House lawn, it will still continue.
I would like to add a perspective from that of my own people, the Cymraeg, Saker.
To us, nationality does exist, but not with the definitions you have used Saker, but we add our own in. It’s who your fore fathers were. We identity being Cymraeg i.e. Welsh, as being born of Welsh parentage that goes back . We say, “we have been a nation here since 500 AD. We have always been of the same group of people, who share physical characteristics, a Mother tongue, and shared beliefs of how to live life and behave. And you are or are not, Welsh”.
There was a huge protest from the people of North and Mid Wales when a newspaper described a crime committed as the English newspapers stated it “The Pakistani Imran Kahn, A Welshman of Cardiff {That wasnt his name, but I forget his name}.
Our cry was, that you cannot just dump some alien migrant down in our ancient land and then say he is one of us.
We find the roots and beginnings of our identity in this knowledge. When he was being questioned about how he survived some tough times, the Welsh actor, Richard Burton, replied “I think it makes you feel strong, I thought “Fy Nuw” {My God} I come from a tough strong people, to have made me like this”.
Of course, others might not see things that way, or might not agree.
But it’s how we do. And the feeling is very strong, very positive.
Very interesting comment, thank you Pamela, I was not aware of all this (I am ashamed of that ignorance!).
Is there a desire for autonomy/independence in Wales as there are in Scotland and Ireland?
Or do the Welsh feel comfortable as part of the UK?
Thank you for your response Saker.
In a small way I’m afraid that it could perhaps be said we mirror Ukraine. Wales has, for 1000 yrs been divided into three regions. Gwynedd, in the far north where the high mountains are [ where I am from ] Powys, the middle land and Ceridigion, the south. And because of infiltration of English into the south of Ceridigion, along the sea of the Bristol Channel, you have less pure Welsh but more English immigrants, and many part Welsh Part English. These, I think , are more inclined to England, because they make money and gain power from being the lap dog of a bigger power. Sadly, they are in all nations.
As you go north, reaching the border between Ceridigion and Powys, and then more north, Plaid Cymru, in full “Plaid Cymru–The Party of Wales” also called the Welsh Nationalist Party, is a political party that has sought self-government for Wales and worked for the protection and promotion of Welsh language, culture, and traditions It is here.you have mostly pure bred Welsh. And it is here that the political party Plaid Cymru,is strong. This is theThe Party of Wales, also called the Welsh Nationalist Party, political party that has sought self-government for Wales and worked for the protection and promotion of Welsh language, culture, and traditions.
So yes, here you find most people have no sense of identity with England which we see as a colonialist invader, as illustrated by taking their Germanic,Greek, French, Monarch and having the utter gall to proclaim them the Prince and Princess of Wales. Here you find we are just as passionate as in our desire to free of England as our Gaelic counterparts in Scotland and Ireland – we just tend to go about it differently, being more quiet, stubborn, and less inclined violence. But yes, we want to be free of the English.
i dont know if you ever head this song – to me it is more a national anthem than the official one. But it does illustrate a strong feeling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llkwpwdk2ro
thank you for all this information!
Thanks Pamela. I used to live on the isles and it always baffled me how little mention the Cornish get. You didn’t mentioned them either. How so?
I recently saw a video about the influence of Welsh, a Celtic language, on English. Of the many languages that formed present day English: Anglo-Saxon, French, Latin, Norse, etc. Celtic Welsh hardly has contributed any words. However, English grammar appears to be heavily influenced by Welsh grammar. For instance, in both English and Welsh one says, “Do you have…?” Whereas in German and French the construction is, “Have you…?”, or. “Is it that you have…?”.
The British Isles were part of the territory conquered by the Celtic empire for several hundred years; before them the land was occupied by people from the area of Turkey.
It would be interesting to trace the occupants of the Euro/Asian Russian lands from prehistoric and early recorded history to Kievan Rus, and beyond.
According to local Serbian media, about 100,000 people have fled Russia for sanctuary in Serbia. If they stay in Serbia, what impact will these “Russian” immigrants have on Serbian society? A similar migration occurred after the Bolshevik Revolution, but then it was a migration of Russia’s intellectual and cultural elite. They were patriotic and religious Russians warmly welcomed by Serbs. They undoubtedly enriched Serbian society but sadly many left after a few years and the rest after the Communist take-over of Yugoslavia. The current wave “Russian” immigrants are generally pro-West, anti-Putin, YouTube bloggers, and IT geeks. Serbia’s population is falling and it could use an influx of Slavic brothers from Russia. Will these people change Serbia for the better?
Mongols are famous/infamous for their feigned retreats.
West is deluding themselves on “victories”.
Neonazis lead by multiple Jewish leaders, is all I need to know about Ukrainian national identity. It is a madhouse.
Oh stop it with the “Jewish leaders” thingie. The Russian princes did not better against the Tatar/Mongols until they learned from them.
genius. I will share this with my teenage children. there are many terms and concepts that I will need to explain to.them. but this is an excellent template from which to analyze current geopolitical events – this article and putins recent speeches …
“Thus, to “be Russian” means, in my opinion, that you have made a deliberate choice by identify with, and become part of, the Russian civilizational realm.”
That makes sense. I suspect that the primary drive (or one of the main drives) for the population of the Donbas to consider themself Russian is that their economy was very intertwined with that of the Russian industrial base. Being an EU member didn’t entice them at all, so they rebelled against the imposition of accepting a trade agreement with the EU.
I am surprised that the author omitted discussion of the Cossacks in this article. The Cossacks allowed any man to join them if he took the Christian oath and served in the military.
The Old Russian Empire was based on a Christian National Covenant, even though it eventually conquered some Muslim majority lands.
The modern Russian State claims no religious basis, which means that the State Religion is Secular Humanism, the State itself as effectively God.
Trying to define a Russian identity apart from Christianity is doomed to failure. Russia was born as a nation from the conversion and baptism of Saint Vladimir and Olga.
Lots of slogans.
Very little actual knowledge.
Give it up!
Replying to the Saker’s earlier reply.
A case in point is the Russian law against proselytizing. It was created with the intention of limiting the ability of cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses to recruit in Russia, a worthy and important goal. However it raises the question, which god is the true God of Russia. To which god is worship and proselytizing allowed? None, all, several, or only one?
Is the established religion of Russia traditionalism? How big is that tent? Christian, Muslim, Budhist, Animist, and what else? Does traditionalism include traditional witchcraft? What about Old Believers?
Currently, the Russian state is effectively regulating religion, without having its own religious test of office. Consequently a Muslim or an Atheist prosecutoroffice or judge could interpret this law in a way it was not intended to be used. This can be guaranteed to eventually happen.
The bigger problem is when the State claims the authority to regulate the Church, the State must first be Christian. An atheist or humanist state that regulates the church will inevitably end up persecuting the Church. The reason is that the Church claims Christ and His Law as the ultimate authority, while a secular state claims the legislature is the highest authority.
In both Biblical history and in Orthodox history, the Christian king or Emperor has called church councils to resolve controversies in the church. Examples include King Josiah who restored the Law and the Passover, Emperor Constantine who called the Council of Nicea, and Ivan IV who participated in the Stoglav Council in 1551. The Stoglav Council standardized the relationship of Church and State in Russia for the next 450 years.
The current relationship where the Russian State has a constitution that recognizes no god, was written under the influence American-Jewish advisors in the 1990s. The Russian Orthodox Church is influential but unofficially so. The current relationship between church and state in Russia is like sewing a patch of new leather onto an old wine skin. It is going to chafe and stretch leading to a tear in due time.
A Christian nation requires both a Christian King and an established Orthodox Church with Apostolic succession. Russia is on the road to recovery from 70 years of official atheism, but it has a long way yet to go.
The Chechyens are part of Russia, and many are patriotic to the Russian State. But in the long run trying to accommodate both Orthodox Christianity and Islam in the same nation will result in one or the other being subjected to the state. That will be viewed as persecution by whichever tradition finds itself the loser.
In my view this is going to be one of the biggest long term problems that Russia faces. The monarchists who desire to return to having an Orthodox Tsar and establishment of the Orthodox Church are going to run into the atheists and Muslims who strongly oppose the establishment of a state religion other than their own. The patriots of the Russian State will tend to view the territory controlled by Russia as more important than the creed which governs Russia. Therefore they will strongly resist moves toward full Christianization that would offend the Muslim Chechnyans badly enough to spawn secession movements.
It will be impossible to define who is a Russian without tackling the question of who is Russia’s God.
The Orthodox answer to the Greek Dialectic of the One and the Many was what made Christianity so powerful. The equal ultimacy of the one God in three persons doctrine also allows a Christian society that recognizes the unity of the collective (the one) while protecting the identity and rights of individuals (the many). In Christian doctrine, as well as ancient paganism, the many were joined into one through a covenant. The covenant specifies the duties of the many to the one, as well as the obligations of the one to protect the many.
This structure exists in the family, the church, the state and the nation.
Any nation that does not have an established church will create it’s own established religion in the form of “science” in the state university and school system. Such states will require all religions to submit to the state, eventually.
A nation can only have one god, because all law is the legislation of morality.
So you were saying, how do we define who is a Russian? I don’t know. But the Cossacks followed the model I’ve described. It worked for them.
It works until you don’t worship their god, then all hell breaks loose.
Yes, there are many good points in this piece. Obviously, “ethnic” or “national” identity is a very tricky, subjective subject and can be shaped by a wide variety of factors, but especially by those who rule over a particular society. This definitely also has a big impact on all the various “diasporas” living all over the world.
For instance, here in the US, the “Ukrainianization” process has occurred too. Half of my ancestors lived near Odessa in the Russian Empire, before immigrating to the USA in the early 1910s. They never spoke the Ukrainian language. The only Slavic language they learned in school was Russian. Back in the 1990s, I remember mentioning that our ancestors came from the Ukraine to my grandmother on that side of the family. She responded by saying something like, “What is the Ukraine? Our ancestors came from Russia.” Yet, by the 2010s, I had relatives that started calling themselves “Ukrainian” just because that is what US mass media and the US intelligentsia had instructed them to do. The Neocons had Ukrainianized us…
Some videos for today.
‘Kiev forces abandon their dead’: Russian military take over Kiev regime army positions:
https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/ukrainian-positions:b
Some of yesterday’s Russian cruise missile strikes:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/FK3qjXqE3G4H/
A Russian drone recorded footage of Banderites shooting regular Ukrainian soldiers, probably conscripts (18+):
https://www.bitchute.com/video/D4aORk1xAgi1/
Unguided Russian Grad rocket flies right into a Kiev regime trench:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/mt2f6ZtXaUDO/
Russian Lancet drone destroys Kiev regime self-propelled howitzer:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/6lxWAFvph7v3/
Russian ATGM destroys Kiev regime armored personnel carrier:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/eEApSiPHuTCh/
DPR forces beat off Kiev regime attack:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/IdvuYchCdrQZ/
Russian Lancet drones destroy more enemy radars:
https://rutube.ru/video/fab1f72be009334eae19876ca76d2005/
Russian Su-25s strike enemy positions:
https://rutube.ru/video/f9f033c61a689afd2baad5eb39a5e699/
Russian self-propelled howitzer fires at enemy positions:
https://rutube.ru/video/9d366d7d5614350d207c206f2b5dffc8/
Russian howitzer fires at enemy position:
https://rutube.ru/video/cb1940591ef7896ee6bab2c01d2648f1/
Russian Ka-52 helicopter fires on enemy positions:
https://rutube.ru/video/607da27df6fb1c7acb7cc9822d4e8126/
“This is about a full reorganization of our entire planet, including the international trade and finance, political alliances and cultural/spiritual values.”
I couldn’t agree more.
As for nationality and culture and what should be a solution for those of us of faith, St. Paul has some very strong feelings on the matter when he said:
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, Philippians 3:7
He even lost all family and all connection to his nationhood. Felt himself in a zoo really.
Lastly, don’t these words of his sum up totally and completely everything that is occurring in the Ukraine?
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. 3:17
Cheers
“Russian is not ethnicity, it is way of life”
Let’s just stick with it, yeah I know it’s a meme, but it explains our current situation. Those who simply defy the western world’s madness are classified as “pro-Russian and pro-Putin”, well, I do not mind, some too I’m sure, if being pro-Russian mean standing on the side of Truth and Justice. Also, since there are plenty of sick people who associate / identity themselves with “Woke, LGBT”, I do not mind to identify myself as pro-Russian when it seeks peace and true freedom for being sovereign human being, not freedom and madness of the western world today.
Wir sind alle Menschen!!!
Ob es Russen, Ukrainer, Polen, Franzosen oder Deutsche sind, (um nur von Bewohnern des eurasischen Kontinents zu sprechen) gibt es keine rein ethnischen Gruppen.
Wir Deutsche können ebenfalls ein Lied davon singen.
Wer waren wir, wo kommen wir her und wo gehen wir hin?
Im Allgemeinen werden wir als Germanen bezeichnet. Das stimmt allerdings nur zum Teil.
Unsere Vorfahren bewohnten ein Gebiet, was heute als Deutschland bekannt ist. Im Westen das “Römische Reich” im Osten slawische Stämme. Das römische Reich war bekanntlich auch ein Konglomerat das sich aus vielen unterdrückten “Stämmen” zusammen setzte z.B. die Kelten als Nachbarn der germanischen Stämme. Schon hier gab es Durchmischungen der einzelnen Stämme und Völker. Mit dem Zusammenbruch des römischen Reiches und der Völkerwanderung wanderten die germanischen Stämme zum Teil bis nach Afrika und vermischten sich mit der dort lebenden Bevölkerung.
Im Großen und Ganzen kam es in Europa erst im 10 Jahrhundert zu Nationenbildung. Es kam zur Gründung des “Heiligen römischen Reiches Deutscher Nation” Letztendlich lebten auf diesem Gebiet Nachfahren der Germanen, der Kelten, der Slawen (Eroberung der Gebiete östlich der Elbe und deren Besiedlung durch Flamen und Westfalen). Es gab ca. 300 Fürstentümer auf diesem Gebiet.
Der nationale Gedanke Deutschland, wurde erst mit den Napoleonischen Kriegen 1806 und 1813 sowie den Kriegen von 1864 bzw. 1870/71 gelöst.
Selbst der europäische Adel und Hochadel sind auf Grund dynastischer Verpflichtungen “gemischt”.
In Deutschland kann man an Hand der Nachnahmen feststellen wer seine Vorfahren waren.
Oftmals sind es die Namen von Berufen wie Müller, Schneider, Richter… ,
oder die Herkunft wie Laskowski, …(slawisch),
oder Denell, Lafontaine,… (Hugenotten). Die Liste ließe sich unendlich weiter führen.
Die Häufigkeit der Namen ist auch regional sehr unterschiedlich.
Ich denke, dass es auf unserer Erde fast allen Nationen so geht und der Prozeß der Vermischung der Völker im Rahmen der Wanderungsbewegungen der Menschen sich beschleunigt.
Es hat keine Nation der Welt das Recht sich über andere Nationen zu erheben.
Noch ein paar Gedanken zu uns Deutsche.
Ein Engländer hat ein Buch über uns geschrieben, welches ich empfehle:
“Der Deutsche Genius” von Peter Watson
We are all human!!!
Whether they are Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, French or Germans (to speak only of residents of the Eurasian continent) there are no purely ethnic groups.
We Germans can also sing a song about it.
Who were we, where do we come from and where are we going?
In general we are referred to as Teutons. However, that is only partly true.
Our ancestors inhabited what is now known as Germany. In the west the “Roman Empire” in the east Slavic tribes. As is well known, the Roman Empire was also a conglomerate made up of many oppressed “tribes”, e.g. the Celts as neighbors of the Germanic tribes. Even here there was a mixture of the individual tribes and peoples. With the collapse of the Roman Empire and the migration of peoples, some of the Germanic tribes migrated to Africa and mixed with the population living there.
Broadly speaking, nation building did not occur in Europe until the 10th century. The “Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation” was founded. Ultimately, descendants of the Germans, the Celts and the Slavs lived in this area (the areas east of the Elbe were conquered and settled by Flemish and Westphalians). There were about 300 principalities in this area.
The national idea of Germany was only resolved with the Napoleonic Wars of 1806 and 1813 and the wars of 1864 and 1870/71.
Even the European nobility and aristocracy are “mixed” due to dynastic obligations.
In Germany, you can find out who your ancestors were by looking at their surnames.
They are often the names of professions such as millers, tailors, judges…
or the origin like Laskowski, …(Slavic),
or Denell, Lafontaine,… (Huguenots). The list could go on indefinitely.
The frequency of the names also varies greatly from region to region.
I think that almost all nations on our planet feel the same way and that the process of mixing of peoples in the context of human migration is accelerating.
No nation in the world has the right to rise above other nations.
A few more thoughts about us Germans.
An Englishman wrote a book about us which I recommend:
“The German Genius” by Peter Watson
But it’s not one nation rising above other nations, it’s a specific group of individuals living in all nations, working collectively to achieve subjugation and control over other humans for ‘personal gain’ : slave, debt slave, degrees of grace?
Cheers M
Sean, absolutely true, divide and rule politics are one of the most effective tools of the satanic West.
That´s why it´s so important to understand your true identity, the ground where you stand.
And that´s why this article is extremely good – as it clarifies and brings to light complexity of the national identity.
For example, I … as a Finn, have always identified myself as a part of Mother Russia, Russian civilization. Tragedy of Finland lies there, that most of my dear compatriots doesn´t dare to admit that we have much more in common with Russia than degenerate West – in other words, we belong to Russian civilization. Divide and rule works well here – even though I would say that Finland is still one of the least Russophobe countries in EU.
What comes to divisions, I would add that there must be borders between nations and civilizations – but not to divide for the benefit of globalists. No, every nation should have right to decide her way of life – her civilizational model. That´s the only way to lasting peace, live and let live.
In the light of above, there was one (among many) interesting point about Ukraine, ” Primarily, the “Ukraine” is a creation of the Latin Papacy … ” An excellent point that explains a lot.
So, maybe there should be a sovereign de-nazified nation based on catholic cultural traditions? West Ukraine? As Saker mentioned, “Nations can be created, in fact, I would argue that all of them are created at some point in time.”
That would be much better solution than give Galicia to Poles, what would only create more problems. Sovereign, neutral Ukraine would be ideal for Mother Russia, exactly like neutral(as much as it was possible) Finland was ideal for Soviet Union.
Andrei,
This is a great piece.
“Thus, to “be Russian” means, in my opinion, that you have made a deliberate choice by identify with, and become part of, the Russian civilizational realm.”
My wife’s family are from a former Soviet Republic in Central Asia. Half of her family would identify more as Persian and Muslim than Russian (although they all speak, read and write Russian fluently) the other half (who are also of Muslim heritage) identify more with modern Russian Civilization (and I would dare say Soviet Russian Civilization). They speak, read and write Russian as a first language and watch Russian news and television programs, listen to Russian music. For them the Soviet Union of the Brezhnev era was the best of times and they speak about it nostalgically. Although not Russian citizens most of that half of the family see themselves as being very connected with Russia. My wife’s identity is somewhere in between but leans more towards the Persian Muslim side (her father’s side) but maintains very close relationship to the more culturally Russian side (her mother’s side).
Identity is a fascinating subject. I for one have multiple identities. Number one I am an Orthodox Christian who came to Orthodoxy via monks from a monastery established by Blessed Father Seraphim Rose (who was a student of St. John Maximovich the wonderworker) and was chrismated into the Orthodox Faith in the former Soviet Union in a parish of the Russian Orthodox Church. I consider myself a “Spiritual Russian”. I feel an extremely strong connection with both modern, Soviet and historical Russia, Tsar Nikolai and the Holy Royal Martyrs as well, the Serbs and to the ancient Orthodox Roman Empire.
Coexisting with this Orthodox identity is my identity as an American. For me the essence of America is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. America without it’s traditional Freedoms and Liberties is not America. Also important to me is the old American saying of, “Trade with all nations and alliance with none” and “America needs not to go to foreign lands in search of dragons to slay”. I know that those sayings are unrealized ideals and are far apart from America’s bloody history but I haven’t forgotten those sayings and believe America would have been better off heeding those sayings. A self sufficient America, a Free nation of Free people, at peace with the world is still my vision for my country.
Then there’s my Mexican heritage and identity which is definitely a part of me, but not speaking Spanish and having not been raised with the traditions I feel somewhat alienated from. I love Mariachi, the dances, I love the traditional clothes and of course the food but I don’t feel completely comfortable claiming them as my own. I speak more Russian than I do Spanish. I do strongly identify with the Roman Catholic image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Then there’s my identity as a Mestizo (mixed European/Spanish/Catholic and Indigenous American). I don’t identify with the Aztecs at all (even though I probably have Aztec blood ) the human sacrifice part of that history always made me adverse to it. Supposedly my great grandmother was Yaqui Indian and I do identify with the Yaquis.
Last but not least I still retain a Roman Catholic identity (even though I left the RCC and converted to Orthodoxy). Roman Catholicism is still a strong part of my identity and it is for my Mother too who left the Church 50 years or more ago. A Catholic identity is hard to shake.
You’re right. Identity is a very powerful thing. When I was in the former Soviet Central Asia a conflict broke out between Uzbek civilians and Kyrgyz civilians. These are both Turkic Muslim people’s with similar history (including Russian Imperial and Soviet) language, cultures and customs but they were fighting each other, killing each other and burning each other’s homes.
« Nations can be created … I would argue all of them are created »
A bad capitalist (pleonasm) habit to name something that always existed , then appropriate it because of that.
A nation is just an attribute of a State system.
Rome was a city ruling an empire. It was not a nation.
The nation notion appeared with the State notion.
A State is a set of laws.
Laws are nation’s codified emotions.
Each nation has (or want to have) its own set of emotions (laws).
A multicultural State is unviable.
Russia is a State containing several nations … and that creates Bolcheviks’ and Putin’s anti-nationalism.
Russia can’t survive as a federation of nations. It must become a confederation of republics … or go back to a kingdom where everyone slowly become the same.
“A multicultural State is unviable.”
You don´t understand the conseptual difference of multiculturalism between the West and Russia.
In Russia implementation of multiculturalism has been nearly opposite of how it works in the West.
In the West it means that everything blends to a one global mindset that rejects all based on traditions, historical memory, religion etc. “Cancel culture” is a really good description for the process, in fact, multiculturalism has been a creeping process in the West – a tool in the hands of globalists. But I assume that you already know that.
In Russia it´s an older concept – as Saker points out in the article – and totally different. In imperial Russia small nations were mostly allowed to keep their traditions, language, even to develop their societies. Still these nations were integral parts of Mother Russia – which is a civilization, bigger thing than a nation.
To understand Russia, you must first understand that Russia is not a nation in a sense it´s understood in the West. What happened after the collapse of USSR was that Mother Russia was balkanized(fortunately not succesfully) – Putin referred to this when he said that the collapse of USSR was the biggest tragedy of our time(or something along those lines)
Multiculturalism is a great concept where it´s needed – when properly implemented.
At some point, a line will be drawn on a map. On one side there will predominately be those who believe that they belong to the Russian civilisation. On the other, those who think that they belong to the Western civilisation.
I suggest that a system is set up so that there can be an exchange of property – especially housing and farmland. Those who feel that Lviv is closer to their hearts would be able to move to that environment and those who feel stranded near Lviv can move further east. I think it is somewhat ridiculous that there are still people living in places like Donetsk whose sympathies lie with Bandera. They would be much more comfortable a lot further west. They are possibly stranded for financial and property rights reasons.
In my opinion this newly discovered Ukrainian identity scam is pure BS very similar in essence to what we are hearing these days about gender is fluid, trans, black lives matter… and all other MSM nonsense aimed at divide and rule by those holding the big money, its fiat creation and flow i.e. the City of London based bankers. The territory called Ukraine has about 80% close affinity with the Russia Civilization and may be 20% with the western regions. And let’s not forget that Poland itself has had enormous give and take with its neighbors, Russia in particular. For a makeshift group of hooligans, skinheads, neonazis whose primary job is ask for more dollars and weapons from their backers, attaching any genuine brand of national identity is a grave mistake. Even in those parts of Ukraine which they seem to be in control, they are threatening the local population at gun point that they are either with or against the Zelinski regime, which means the overall population living in the Ukrainian territory don’t really identify themselves with the Zionist-concocted neonazi cultural project.
Historically, the lands of present-day Ukraine were mainly populated by Slavs and multiple tribes. This region was shaped by many wars especially between the Polish-Lithuanian and the Russians as well as by the Cossacks. The first “nation” which could be the birth of Ukraine was in fact the Cossack Hetmanate (Treaty of Hadiach 1658) which became the cossacks republic of de zaporijia and (after centuries) still defended by Nestor Makhno in 1906. In other words, if there is a Ukrainian nation, she is a Cossack. Those who fight (today) with the Russians against the Nazis. The rest are Slavs and, more precisely, the so-called self-proclaimed Ukrainians are Russians who don’t like Russians, Russians who deny their origins. They are simply despicable Russians. Little Russians without the Russian soul. Simple creatures without faith or law.
As a child in British South Africa during WW2 I was culturally surrounded by the Nazi myth of Pure Race and Master Race (which we British shared). Fortunately Soviet Russia demolished that myth, though even the Red Army could not knock that nonsense out of the Fuhrer’s head. Even while a Russian soldier was raising the Soviet Flag over Berlin and Hitler was preparing suicide, the Fuhrer’s last words were:
“The rotten, no good German volk were unworthy of my genius. I should have led the Russians: they are the Supermen”.
After the War I was delighted to come across a Jewish-German-Swiss-American scientist’s answer to the question: “What is your race?” Einstein replied: “Human”.
Later on, having done some research in Biology, I was intrigued to hear the Keynote Speaker at a Biophysics Conference in Copenhager utter something which sounded like mysticism. He said that even the Human Race is a fuzzy concept because we share most of our DNA and other biochemicals with the Ape, the Bacterium and the Banana:
“There is only one animal on earth, and we are its parts”.
It reminded me of another mystical saying from another high level thinker:
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and no female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” — Galatians 3:23
Perhaps these concepts are too abstract for the present discussion; but perhaps they explain why I approve these sayings of the Saker:
“Why should I have to limit myself to only one, “pure”, identity when I am so clearly a mongrel? In fact, I embrace and enjoy all this diversity of influences which all have contributed to shape the person I am today. And if I claim that right to cumulative identities, how could I deny it to anybody else?”
“This makes a lot more sense to me that to dig into past clades, tribes or local native groups and seek some “biological identity”.
“This is, by the way, one of the most striking and profound differences between the Russian and Ukronazi cultural models: Russians want and enjoy the immense diversity of their nations. Ukronazi want a racially pure “Russenrein” Ukraine (hence their constant talk about “subhumans”, “cockroaches” and “biomass”).
“Let’s leave the idiotic concept of “pure race” to the Nazis, Zionists and their likes.”
My Russian connections feel few but somehow deep enough to have some weight. No connections by blood, but oddly my daughter took a strong interest in Russia at a young age and many years later married into a Russian family with whom we spent many holidays and talked all the forbidden subjects of politics religion and identity. The father, Leonid, escaped Russia with his mother during Stalin’s time with the help of Tolstoys’ daughter. I was more of a fan of Tolstoy than he. Russian artists have always spoken to me from Chagall to Kandinsky from Tchaikovsky to Shostokovich, Tarkovsky to . This habit of loving individuals, artists , and advocates of love has made nothing but trouble for integrating into the US. I love Turtle Island and all the musics, and crazies and crusaders and Ghost dancers, even the baffled bland suburbanites are fun at a barbecues, but I have grown over many decades to dislike the US as an empire and as a political force in human history in much the same way that the Irish( all my ancestors come from Ireland) hate the English. Still I deeply share what Andrei is exploring here- the sense that we make deep civilizational choices not from some clear history or nationality but combinations of cultural streams and lived places that become a river of silky movement soft and changing in every part but earth moving in effect. The anglo war on everything is finally facing serious resistance, Vietnam, Central America and now The very real civilization unfolding from the borderland between Europe and Asia. I fear for us all but have to hope for the best. The anglo culture is boring, millions of versions of Beowulf. Who gets to play Grendel this year? I want to see Beowulf beaten to pulp and crying like a baby while peyote singers lull him to a thousand years of overdue slumber. May he be reborn once again as Merlin of the forest sauvage.
Das ist korrekt.
Ich bitte aber eins dabei zu bedenken. Viele Regierungen haben die Menschen in ihren Nationen mit Nationalismus gefüttert, so dass große Teile der Bevölkerung der Meinung waren und sind sich über andere Nationen und Völker zu erheben; siehe Kolonialmächte, der Faschismus in Deutschland und in Italien sowie zum jetzigen Zeitraum die Ukraine.
Do you mean to say that ethnicities broadly speaking and Russian ethnos in particular do not exist?
You are who you are based on the country in which you exist. Resistance to that concept is when the trouble starts. It spreads from there in great detail, but that’s a good place to start. That’s what I get from all my reading, and this post is yet another fine history lesson, Andrei. No stone unturned, as always.
As an aside, bit of a bummer. Larry Johnson’s site, sonar21.com is down a day and then some. I guess his new host isn’t cutting it quite yet. Anyone hear anything? I hate to bug the guy through email. The message back from the host is:
“Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your
request due to the site owner reaching his/her
bandwidth limit. Please try again later.”
Never saw a comeback like that from a web host. I’m sure it’s nothing sinister, just weird.
I want to say, as an American citizen, that since 2014,sometime thereafter, a funny thing happened.
One day, I forget when, despite losing my Russian tongue since I didn’t grow up with Mom, who stopped speaking Russian to me, but rather in ten foster homes, nevertheless I looked in the mirror
One day, and to my great surprise, I saw a Russian man.
Wow.
“Are Ukrainians Russians?”
Are the British Anglo-Saxons?
Well of course…
ah…then again, maybe not so much.
Here is an article: “DNA of the nation revealed…and we’re not as ‘British’ as we think”
DNA shows that the Brits we think of as Anglo-Saxon are roughly only 37% Anglo-Saxon.
(20% Celtic, 20% Western Europe, 9% Scandinavian plus some Spanish, Italian and Greek).
And those numbers vary as you journey about the island.
https://www.ancestry.com/corporate/international/press-releases/DNA-of-the-nation-revealedand-were-not-as-British-as-we-think
No, the ‘British’ are not Anglo-Saxon. ‘British’ means having a British passport or coming from Great Britain – and no one there would ever say they are British. They will say they are English, or Northern Irish, or Scots, or Welsh. The English are the most numerous and Anglo-Saxon (partly) in origin. About a thousand years ago.
A family member (born in Siberia in the Soviet era, with traceable 4-generation ancestry on both sides from the Vladmir region) recently had a DNA analysis from an American lab – the result was part Finnish, part Inuit, part Central Asian and part Baltic. So Russian DNA is not recognised as a type? Maybe.
The other big surprise was finding out that the Inuits – having spread to Alaska – were known as ‘Russian-Americans’ …! This nationality thing is a real can of worms.
I used to worry about every change in the front line in this war, cheering every advance and worrying about every loss until I realized something related to this article.
The SMO is not about territory per se. Instead it is about giving those who want to the leave the sinking ship that is Ukraine the chance to choose which civilizational realm they wish to join, Russia or the West. Now all of the millions of Ukrainian refugees in Russia from eastern Ukraine who wish can now say they are Russian, whereas before they were only “Ukrainian refugees”, i.e. outsiders in Russia.
Once you think this way, the war and its likely future progress make sense.
Namely, this means that Russia will have to take areas with large pro-Russian populations, e.g. Kharkiv and Odessa and give the people there the chance to become Russians. This also means Russia will not go to Lvov because there are so few people there that want to be Russia. It just isn’t worth it.
It also means that Russia can’t “lose” this war in that even in the worst case scenario (losing territorial control) it will have added millions of new pro-Russian citizens to its civilizational realm.
That’s why the war is taking so long and why it will last for months or even years longer. All of eastern Ukraine is being digested by Russia with the inedible parts spit out.
“But, when all is said and done, it will be for the people of the Ukraine to decide which civilizational realm they want to embrace.”
Gosh I hope we get the chance to live and think for ourselves, unfortunately it seems the overlords decide what large masses of sheep believe in this time where hate is stronger than love. A child hates itself enough to ask to be mutilated. Blame the child? Blame the state? Blame the parent who capitulated for scraps?
The cull has escalated, it would seem they want rid of too many sheep and control of the frisky wolf. Same old enemy, absolute control is the main goal.
“Does Russia need such “friends” or “allies”?” It’s like you don’t want a politician that wants the job, you want one forced into it. You want citizens who embrace each other, not those who look to mooch off the strong, or subjugate the weak. We should disdain the status quo and live in hope.
Pyotr I defined a Russian best – «Русский – тот, кто Россию любит и служит ей» “A Russian is someone who loves Russia and serves her.”
It’s a fascinating and thought-provoking article, but I did find some bits a bit skewed. After all, if a Japanese has a fundamental human right to call himself a Martian then surely a Ukranian should not be accused of hallucinating if he calls himself a pure Aryan? And while free choice of identity may indeed be an alienable right then so (by the same logic) is the right of others to consider that person’s choice invalid.
For example, while A might consider himself to be a Martian B, C and D might consider him barking mad and that they are justified in strapping him down and taking him somewhere quiet and padded. For his own good.
Or the society to which someone chooses to identify with might reject that person as Not One Of Us. Me identifying myself as a musician springs to mind.
One salient point that wasn’t addressed within the context of nationality was who is asking and why? Border Guards, for example, don’t want self-justifying philosophy and polemic – they want passports. So the answer to whether you are Russian or Ukranian (or both) is simply a question of passport within that narrow context. As to where the heart lies – another matter and no anyone else’s business.
Haymer, Japanese/Martians was a bit bad choice of words from Saker, I agree.
The whole point of this issue is not to choose an identity – it´s to find your real identity. Because everyone has a real, meaningful, identity – much, much bigger than being just a musician.
Globalists try to destroy real identities exactly by telling people that you are free to choose any identity you want. That´s simply not true, for example, nothing can change the fact that you was born as a man – not even sex change surgery. There are things that you can´t change in your life, a lot of things.
Identity is like an onion, more you peel, more you will find – man, musician, American, southener, etc. But what includes in identity? Is being a fan of a Manchester United an identity?
I would say that present-day fan culture, in any form, advances globalist agenda – because fan culture creates fake, artificial, temporary, dead and meaningless identities. Those who can´t find any other meaning for their life than supporting a football team or being a metal-fan etc. are completely lost, lost souls until they find out what they really are.
Tom Weiss wrote above that, “The SMO is not about territory per se. Instead it is about giving those who want to the leave the sinking ship that is Ukraine the chance to choose which civilizational realm they wish to join, Russia or the West.”
Absolutely, more than anything else, SMO is about choosing the civilizational realm and finding more meaningful identity in the new life context.
There are those who think themselves superior to others, so it has been, all through history.
A true Russian knows a man from the Ukraine is his brother, and if corrupted, he see’s this too.
You Mr. Saker invented the word AngloZionist around 2016.
I retain massive respect for you, but I am English, though my family name, which is still very rare in England originates from North Western France. We were Fisherman, probably Huguenots (or so I am advised by other members of my family and other research, though I have never been that interested, as from my Mother’s side I am also very Scottish, Welsh, and possibly Celtic) There seems to be a common theme of originating from the West Coasts of Europe, on all sides of my Family, though probably down to the direction of the wind, when we got chucked out of France, we ended up on the East coast of England in fishing village of Staithes (which is still incredibly beautiful) Oldest grave I found dated 1601.
Whilst I do know some Jewish people, I have never personally had a problem with them. Most seem to be highly intelligent artists and musicians. I can’t tell the difference between them and anyone else, except some of them wear funny hats in North London, especially Camden Town which is really good for live music
No one gives them a problem, and they don’t give us a problem. Yet the number of Jewish people in England is pretty close to the number of people that have my surname. There are very few of us.
Your word AngloZionist, gives the impression that a large percentage of English people are Jewish, and that simply is not true. It might be true in New York, but it is not true in England
I don’t have a problem, with the vast majority of your writings and analyses, and can’t argue with most of the detail, but your word AngloZionist slightly annoys me, as its not a reflection of the truth.
The vast majority of the English have been either Christian Roman Catholic or Protestant for an exceedingly long time. Jewish people hardly ever got a mention, except briefly by William Shakespeare in the Merchant of Venice.
Antoine
You should not take generalizations personally, unless of course you really are an Anglo-Zionist. However, the term Anglo-Zionist is perfectly apropos, in regards to the current status of the US/UK/EU Hegemony.
Personally, I would describe myself as more of an Anglo-Russophile. At least in the context of the current global struggle.
I am an American(Southerner) of British descent. The best hope I have for my nation, is that the Anglo-Zionist Hegemony be defeated by Russia in such a way that the defeat is public and undeniable. Only through a national chastening do I see a real way forward.
I actually found this conversation really interesting, as for the first time in about 10 years, I did a google search of my name, and a significant number of the responses, re my name came from North Yorkshire, in England, indicating my analysis done about 50 years ago by me, and earlier by my family (I was the youngest) was probably true. We were originally from North Western France, and due to Religious Disputes, decided to leave France in our Fishing Boats, probably because the Catholics were trying to kill us. I had the earliest evidence by the gravestone 1601.
I have always found Yorkshire people very friendly , even though I was born in Lancashire, and live in London
However, there are absolutely loads of us in The USA, and some of the photos are really funny, so it seems whilst some of us moved to the USA, we retained our sense of humour and irony even if most of us were farmers. Growing food and fishing is useful to the human race.
I could mention my wife’s maiden name, but that is not relevant to the discussion, though our Grand Daughter 3 months old, is, and retains my family name. She’s Beautiful.
My wife’s great grandmother, and her sister – great auntie told me, my girlfriend – she is a real princess. I could hardly argue. Some old wives tales are true -so we took these old ladies round Hever Castle -looking at the paintings – see the resemblance (no) – but it might be true.
wtf does it matter?
We are here and now, and its getting very cold.
Tony
OMG, I thought you were Olmec!
Just because men wearing those little Turkish hats don’t roam North London beating people up in the street doesn’t mean “they don’t give us a problem”. You heard about “Bill Browder”? He sure did a nasty on the US. And Russia. And the UK.
this comment has been flagged as of little/no value (possibly troll) by the sakerIf I may Saker in reply to they don’t call freemasonry Judaism for Gentiles for nothing.
Visit Henrymakow .com and perhaps read his books The Cult that Hijacked the World.
Visit the vigilantcitizen.com and be dismayed.
Visit Occidentalobserver.com and be rendered sleepless.
Visit davidduke and well for a Ukrainian you will have a great many questions to mull over…
Your word AngloZionist, gives the impression that a large percentage of English people are Jewish
Oh please!
At least try to read this: /anglozionist-short-primer-for-the-newcomers/
Very thoughtful, and thought-provoking, post, thank you for it.
“the Latin Papists and all the other Russia-haters”
What the…?
I am a Catholic, and I LOVE Russia.
Then you either are sincerely completely unaware of history, or you are deliberately obfuscating it.
Bottom line: Latins LOVE Russia the way pedophiles LOVE children.
1000 years of nonstop aggression prove this.
The Papacy even created the Ukraine – was that an expression of your “LOVE”?
Maybe the Papacy is Russophobic, and I won’t argue about it, but what does that mean for countries like Hungary, Cuba and Venezuela? Are those countries not Catholic?
this comment has been flagged as of little/no value (possibly troll) by the saker@ Saker
With a paragraph/biography like below ever given any thought about doing an interview with the man?
Dr. Duke is a graduate of Louisiana State University with a BA in History. He pursued a PhD in the largest university in Ukraine and in 2005 completed his Doctoral Defense in Kiev where more than a dozen of the top academics of the nation of Ukraine participated.
https://davidduke.com/a-short-biography-of-dr-david-duke/
I’ll keep this short and simple, I’m a proud American and I love Russia, the culture, the people, the history of Russia. Even the Russian national anthem evokes feelings of patriotism although it is not my anthem. And if loving Russia is wrong I don’t want to be right.
It is good to be proud of one’s nationality, ethnicity, ancestry as long as you realize that it does not define you as a person. Your actions define the person that you are today and your actions are forging your future.
Regarding the term Anglo-Zionist I believe The Saker uses the term to describe the symbiotic relationship between the UK-US Empire and the Zionist Jews The Rothschilds etc. I recommend people listen to Benjamin Friedmans warning to Americans 1961 speech. In this speech Friedman who was a powerful Zionist Jew who converted to Catholicism explains in detail the powerful symbiotic relationship between the European aristocracy and International Zionist Jewery.
This is a delicate topic and I completely understand that this article in particular touches a lot of nerves. Ethnicity, national identity etc. can be difficult things to discuss but if we stay calm and keep an open mind we may realize that we have a lot more in common than we initially thought.
Russian is a nationality, Ukrainian is geographical belonging
What Putin announced in the first few months of the SMO about the ambitions, intentions, and plans of Russia in the ethical/moral, political, economic, spiritual, social domains can be highly valued and it is. From what little I know about Russia I came to the opinion that these objectives may start a totally new course for the world, but definitely will start a new course for Russia. So far I thought that there were three main factions of commitments in Russia: 1. those who are mainly conservative and faithful to Orthodox Christianity values 2. predominantly Communists, who are committed to the restoration of the Soviet Union (even if at a dream/desire level), and think that the ideology and the concept of the Soviet Union brought the time when the Russian Empire was the greatest. They still worship Stalin and Lenin maybe etc.etc. 3. those who are fans of the Western values and all the cultural icons coming from the US and W Europe from McDonalds to the LMBTQ rights. Russian liberals. Putin’s opposition. None of the above 3 groups’ Weltanschauung fits the bill to the objectives announced by Putin earlier. It seems all and everybody must change to deliver on those. Maybe the present zero-sum game existential crisis helps to align the whole nation behind those goals.
The national identity issue – there is so much contention around this, when all we are talking about is the political affirmation of a collective/communal identity. In my own view, for what it is worth, this is not an a priori negative thing in & of itself, as many claim, it depends very much on how that national identity manifests itself. The much vaunted Ukranian “nationalism” for example, is based on a completely false set of premises, & the supposed Ukrainian nationalists want their country to be colonised by the west. What kind of nationalism is this then? A nationalism that rejects any identification with anything Russian, a denial of self, is this a real Ukrainian nationalism? Then we have the position that patriotism is something different than nationalism, others argue that there is no real distinction, only that on emphasises the country/fatherland i.e. patriotism, the other the nation/people i.e. nationalism. In my view neither of these are a priori negative, again, it depends on how they manifest. The claim that nationalism is in itself chauvinistic is again false, a nationalism that has a real authentic national community, with a rich history & culture to serve as its foundation, i.e. Russian, or in my own case, Serbian, is neither exclusivist or supremacist, it is self-affirming on its own merits, not at some other entity’s expense.
What i am missing here is the fact that Lvov / Lviv / Lemberg was 300 years under Habsburg rule, ever since the partition of Poland in the 18th century till the end of WW1.
Before the Austrians, it was barely a city, something like 3k population. The Habsburgs installed some royals there and tried to build up the area. It became a city under them and all historical buildings there are from that time.
However, somehow, everybody considers it a clay of Poland, because the people living there still were mostly Poles throughout that time till the wars happened.
But if you stay by the claim that Nationalism is a rather new invention, wouldn’t this mean that this area belongs to the Empire that built it up and owned it for most of its civilized existence and those people are Austrians?
1. I think the problem stems from the conflation of “nation” with “nation-state”. A nation is a group of people, more closely related in genetic terms to each other than to outsiders – the level between tribe and race, if you will. A nation-state is a state that a nation controls/rules for itself. Yes, there might be minorities and/or fuzzy borders when it comes to where to draw the line, but the fact that the borders are fuzzy doesn’t mean that a rainbow is only one colour, not seven.
2. Sometimes a nation can have multiple states. My nation, the British nation, can be found everywhere from America (where we’re a probably a minority now, having started as the main founding stock) to the UK, where we’re still a solid majority.
3. New nations can form from isolation and/or intermixing. I have both Anglo-Saxon and Celtic ancestry – ie I’m British, not English or Welsh. The present-day nation of Russia may in fact be different from the Russian nation of 1,000 AD (not having looked into the genetics, I don’t know).
4. Although culture is in part genetically influenced, we’re hardly meat robots enslaved to our genes. America has always had a strong republican (small R!) ethos whilst the UK is solidly monarchist, despite coming from the same founding stock.
5. You can change your identity but not your nationality. I could have been born in Japan and lived my whole life there, not knowing a word of English or of British culture, having only Japanese citizenship – I could even be fully accepted by the natives as one of their own, unlikely as that would be… but I’d still be British, whatever the paperwork says and whatever I or anyone else thinks.
6. A nation should be wary about who it lets rule it, because people from different nations will tend to think and behave differently. The Bible calls rule by foreigners (and women) a curse for a very good reason. Here in the UK whilst I think Maggie Thatcher a good PM, the other women we’ve had in that role have been, how shall we say, less than stellar.
7. Identity is not just about nationality – even if Ukrainian citizens and Russian citizens are the same nation, there are some other rather obvious differences of opinion between them, and it’s downright stupid to pretend these differences don’t exist.
Thank you, Andrei it was an interesting & worthy reading (including comments). I enjoyed it even though I would only marginally or not at all agree with almost every of the many theses in there :) I ‘ll give one example.
About the inherent people’s rights. There is only one inherent right given to people at birth – the right to earn their bread in the sweat of their faces until they die. All other rights are sold to people (usually by the governments), each “right” in exchange for a piece of their immortal soul.
Thus spake the Alekz
a good article, interesting notion about how russian federation people mostly feel, as a unit amalgamated of many faiths and nations. Amazing how easy eg those hot blooded chechens stand now united for Russia. This happens when there is empire leader who defends natural God given rights and rules. If I demonstrate to my Russian friend the jews in ukro positions he is not accepting it to be the elephant in the room. This could be to their disadvantage. On a chronic basis forgetting their arch enemy, ie international atheist joo mafia and not being able to separate them from others.
How to cure Ukrainians of hatred towards Russians, how to make them Russians again? Is it possible to carry out the transfer of peoples: Ukrainians то Russia and Siberia, and Russians то Ukraine – this is how the empires used to solve the problem.
Thank you. Well written. As a human, I believe that Banderastan needs to be de-Nazified. This is a group of people who know no restraint in their aggression against others. They have been proven guilty by their actions and history as guilty of crimes against humanity.
The American Indian Tribes have had to wrestle with a similar question for themselves. Who is a native American?
The US Government encourages a policy based on blood quanta, where anyone with less than 1/16th blood of the tribe cannot be counted as a member of the tribe.
The Cherokee Tribe realized this policy is designed to define them out of existence, so they rejected it. They accept as Cherokee anyone with a single ancestor on the 1896 Dawes Rolls.
It is not about nations and countries in modern time. I’d say 80% of all “countries and nations” are fake constructs just to serve the hegemon. Example: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and bunch of others are Persians, but fools got divided instead of having a Persian superstate. Pick any continent, and you can reduce country number multiple times. Oh, religion does wonders, too.
You know that ukraine is a geographical orientation, only.
Well, the hegemon saw an opportunity to create a nation, right under the Russian belly. What could go wrong.
Today, the sheep hang onto their “identities” that can be traced back few decades. Quite a heratage.
Entire north Africa are Arabs, yet they have 10 countries there. Easy pickings for masters.
Dead on for Russian society, who were in coma for centuries.
VV wages war on 2 fronts, to wake up great nation out of slumber and to crush the hegemon.
30+ “countries” are scrambling to counter just One, they seem to be clueless.
It is not who owns land, it is who can put a missile on it, therefore, not a square meter to nazis.
SMO must be upgraded to Depopulation.
Z
A thread for linguists if anyone knows anything about it.
YT Russians with attitude – Composition of the Ukrainian nation, commentator
Juodagalve Sniegen; the opinion that the Ukrainian official language is artificially created. I would like to point out that we are talking about the language that is taught in schools.
The commentator argues “…Ukrainian breaks language rules…doesn’t follow the rules all Indo-European languages ….,every teacher told me this, that’s why so many in eastern Ukraine refuse to teach it to their kids, their kids start performing badly in their Russian exams because they start breaking basic language rules which ends up making them illiterate…”
The subcommentary added that the suržik does not have these problems, is consistent with certain rules, etc.
The topic is interesting to me because I remember an article about children and their cognitive development (brain). Unfortunately I can’t remember the title, but the point was; Somewhere in the Caribbean, where there is a mixing of populations and different languages on the islands/slums, adults are not capable of creating a new, living, flexible language with rules. They are able to mix words, but you get a mix of languages and Yoda-speak. Children up to the age of 12 are able to create a new language (brain) that has consistent rules.
It would be interesting to know more about the development of the Ukrainian official language.
Very good article, thanks Andrei, raising questions about what is a nation, a country, an identity. It was very usefull for me to read, I’m so thankfull!
In the end the answer remains murky, doesnt it ? These are all changing in time, and therefore, identifying with one is necessarily a limited proposition.
It reminds me of the gender identification… the LGBTQ whatever… current craze. As if our gender was the only defining element to our Selves.
Which is why in vedic philosophy and yogic training they push us to develop a wider, much wider identity, a cosmic one. Identify with the Soul, which is ONE, WE are the Soul!
Ironically it took a Russian/Ukrainian scientist, Vernadsky, to define what human means.
Hey guys, ye have got it all wrong!
RF Ambassador to the UN Nebenzia asked his French counterpart at the UN if he knew he was Ukrainian.
https://ria.ru/20220512/nebenzya-1788200476.html
Here the source of absolute, and Biblical, truth is referenced – Kiev school textbooks. (Hilarious article!)
Those who push “ethnic” identity-politics, in fashion today in NATOstan, ought to check these sources!
I find there now that we are ALL Ukrainians, and Jesus is likely from Galicia, as the Pharoah Mena took his name from Mena in Ukraine.